"My friend, tell the cardinal that I am his very humble servant," was his answer to insinuating speeches as well as to threats; and he prepared with tranquil coolness for defence to the uttermost.

Two municipal councillors, two burgesses, and a clergyman were commissioned to judge and to punish spies and traitors; attention was concentrated upon getting provisions into the town; the country was already devastated, but reliance was placed upon promises of help from England; and religious exercises were everywhere multiplied.

"We will hold out to the last day," reiterated the burgesses.
[Illustration: John Guiton's Oath----254] It was the month of December; bad weather interfered with the siege-works; the king was having a line of circumvallation pushed forward to close the approaches to the city on the land side; the cardinal was having a mole of stone-work, occupying the whole breadth of the roads, constructed; the king's little fleet, commanded by M.de Guise, had been ordered up to protect the laborers; Spain had sent twenty-eight vessels in such bad condition that those which were rolled into the sea laden with stones were of more value.

"They were employed Spanish-fashion," says Richelieu, "that is, to make an appearance so as to astound the Rochellese by the union of the two crowns." A few days after their arrival, at the rumor of assistance coming from England, the Spanish admiral, who had secret orders to make no effort for France, demanded permission to withdraw his ships.

"It was very shameful of them, but it was thought good to let them go without the king's consent, making believe that he had given them their dismissal, and desired them to go and set about preparing, one way or another, a large armament by the spring." The Rochellese were rejoicing over the treaty they had just concluded with the King of England, who promised "to aid them by land and sea, to the best of his kingly power, until he should have brought about a fair and secure peace." The mole was every moment being washed away by the sea; and, "whilst the cardinal was employing all the wits which God had given him to bring to a successful issue the siege of La Rochelle to the glory of God and the welfare of the state, and was laboring to that end more than the bodily strength granted to him by God seemed to permit, one would have said that the sea and the winds, favoring the English and the islands, were up in opposition and thwarting his designs." The king was growing tired, and wished to go to Paris; but this was not the advice of the cardinal, and "the truths he uttered were so displeasing to the king that he fell somehow into disgrace.